History of Japanese Type I Rifle

 Some articles and books in English have already discussed the design of the rifle itself. This article is going to discuss the history of Japanese Type I rifle, which has not yet been realized by western collectors.

Japanese named the rifle after Italy as “イ式小銃” or more formally as 伊太利製改造小銃 (Italy made modified rifle) which abbreviates to 伊式小銃.

There’s a story circulating out there said these rifles were bought for Japanese Imperial Navy which land troops were hardly to acquire small arms from the Army controlled arsenals. I have to say this is not true though  IJ Navy and marines were main users of these rifles. Italian rifles alongside K98k from Mauser were parts of Trio Pact that Japan-German-Italian exchanges military technologies and weapons for balancing trade deficit.

Japanese archives show that the rifle contract was processed by Japanese Ministry of Army under the term of Japanese-Manchuria-Italian Pact. Japan initially ordered about 130,000 Italian rifles (seems later amended to 100,000? Still need some works to figure it out) outwardly claiming to arm the puppet regime, Manchukuo Military force. Though the rifles never made their way to Manchukuo. 

According to Japanese records prepared for surrender, most of Type I had been issued to Navy and Aviation forces where small arms are secondary weapons. Imperial Marines was also among main users. Chinese Army captured 1700 Type I rifles belongs to Imperial Marine forces in Shanghai after Japan surrender. At least 6000 were provided to Japanese puppet regimes in Mainland China during the war. Another document shows Imperial Army stationed in Northern China equipped 91 Type I rifles. We can refer that Type I were mainly issued to second line troops and puppet regime troops rather than a weapon specialized for Imperial Navy as claimed by many collectors before.

Japanese contract negotiation commenced in the middle of 1938 and the deal was made in September 1938. Italians offered two modification plans. Option one only to convert caliber to 6.5 Arisaka and keep the Carcano style magazine, which can be delivered in 9 months at cost of 65 Yen (350 Lira) . Option two to convert the caliber as well as the magazine to Japanese Type 38 pattern, which can be delivered in 12 months at a cost of 75 Yen (400 Lira) each rifle. Obviously Japan chose the second option as we've seen now. Japanese contract total valued in 10 Million Yen including rifles, cartridges and spare parts. In December 1939, Japanese order more extractor parts.

Italians shipped the rifles in 6 separate batches from December 1938 to December 1939. I do not know the time and quantity of first four shipments, only the last two shipping were discovered so far. The fifth shipment of 20060 rifles and the six shipment sailed to Japan respectively on November 17 1939 and on December 28. The deal was closed in March 1940 as Japanese made the last sixth payment.

Ps: A-038 and G4868 were used for durability test.